On one of her visits she showed me how to make roses using wire and crepe paper. To cut the wire Edith, as she was called, went out and bought a pair of needle nose pliers. When we were finished making the red and pink roses, she gave the pliers to me. "Something every girl needs" she said.
As a young woman Edith was vivacious and pretty. She loved to dance. Her family lived in Ontario County since 1828 when her great-grandfather John Weir had come from Roxburgshire Scotland with his wife Agnes and their children to farm. Her grandfather John Jr. enhanced the family's fortunes by speculating on timber and land in Uxbridge and Reach Townships. He was an Uxbridge Town Councillor from 1880 to 1885 and also had a saw mill in the hamlet of Brookdale. Ever the enterprising young man he also enumerated the 1861 and 1871 census.
Fred Wilcox had lived with his family on the farm next door from 1886 to 1895 before his family had sold their property and moved to North Dakota. He was eleven years Edith's senior when he came back in the fall of 1902 to court her. At 18 Edith was smitten by his good looks, charm and worldliness. He was a man of great dreams and promises. One January 21, 1903, they were married in her sister's house in Goodwood. Shortly after, pregnant with their first child, Edith left for North Dakota.
Their first dwelling was a "soddie". It was one large room made of sod, constructed by putting two rows of sod cubes piled grass side down in staggered layers. The lower parts of the walls were reinforced with planks. The grass interwined and acted in place of mortar. Edith often spoke of this period in her life to my mother. She said frequently the Indians would visit and silently drink tea. This house was followed by a frame house and baby George.
Soon however Fred decided to try his luck homesteading in Saskatchewan with two of his brothers. Full of dreams, he thought it would be much better up there. Edith helped him build another house. Four more children followed. One died. Then came World War II. Fred enlisted and went to England. He came back but effectively did not live again with Edith until he was an old man.
She supported her young children by running boarding houses, mainly in Regina. My mother told me scornfully that Edith ONLY took in MALE boarders. The signifigance of that went right over my young head. Perhaps she did make a little extra money on the side from men -- but who knows and who is to judge? The boys sold vegetables and flowers for extra money. The toughness and the resourcefulness of single mothers like Edith supporting children, in fact, putting one son, my father, through university, before the establishment of the welfare system, is something I can only now appreciate.
The red and pink crepe paper roses we made are long gone but forty years later I hope I have a little of the resourcefulness and resilience of my grandmother. I still have the pliers. They're something no woman should be without.